1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the area of system interconnect technology.
2. Description of the Background Art
There is increasing interest in the use of high-speed serial data communication for exchange of data between the devices that make up various types of systems. There are many possible protocols for such high-speed serial interfaces (HSSI). Some of these protocols may be industry-standard protocols. Other protocols may be custom-designed for particular systems.
A particular protocol typically involves such things as how is the data formatted; how many channels are used together to provide the overall communication link; at what speed (serial data rate or bit rate) is a channel operated; if multiple channels are employed to provide a link, how much skew (differential delay) can there be between the channels; and so forth.
Examples of industry-standard protocols include PCI Express® (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), XAUI (X Attachment Unit Interface), sRIO (serial Rapid IO), and many others. PCI Express® is a point-to-point serial interface introduced by Intel Corporation of Santa Clara, Calif., and may be used, for example, as an expansion card interface for computer systems. XAUI is a 10 gigabit per second serial interface which may be used, for example, as a chip-to-chip interface. sRIO is a high-performance packet-switched interface technology which may also be used as a chip-to-chip interface.